“We started pounding his chest and yelling at him”

Good morning and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up. Today’s edition is brought to you by Rx Smart Gear, a fitness solutions company that developed the Rx EVO Speed Rope.

The Evo is the fastest speed rope on the planet — period. By merging elegant contouring, mixed textures and precision engineering we’ve created a workhorse that looks like a work of art. That’s why it’s the jump rope of choice for top CrossFit Games athletes. Discover the evolution of speed ropes.

“Your plan will change, but you can’t change the plan until you have one!”– Randy Pausch

Rescue on the Mountain. How Noah Ohlsen Helped Save a Life

What happened?

On Saturday, approximately four miles into the Ultimate Hawaiian Trail Run near the summit, a runner started to experience severe fatigue, cramping, nausea and chills.

Fellow racers noticed this runner in distress and notified the medical team down at the bottom.

And along comes Noah Ohlsen…

Running up the trail right after the “stairway to heaven” (translation: a really steep climb up), Noah spotted a guy leaning up against a tree with another concerned runner next to him.

“Right away I could tell that he wasn’t [OK],” Ohlsen told us. “He was pale dizzy and delirious. He said he needed to sit down and then pretty much passed out.”

At one point he stopped breathing for about 10 seconds.

“We started pounding his chest and yelling at him to stay with us and I really considered that this dude might die in my arms,” Ohlsen said.

Meanwhile 1.5 miles down the Stairway to Heaven…

The med staff was at the bottom receiving the news that someone was in serious trouble.  So up they went and 20 minutes later they found Noah Ohlsen and Lee Soares, coach at CFTC CrossFit, caring for the runner.

“The patient was suffering from a true medical emergency,” said Cameron Bucek, a national registered paramedic, former firefighter and lead of medical team. Med staff believe he had rhabdo. He also had a history of rhabdo. 

For about 10 minutes they carried him down the mountain in their arms until more med staff arrived and were able to strap him to a backboard and wrap him in a foil blanket to avoid hypothermia. They setup a belay station to a tree and began to hoist him down where an ATV was waiting to take him to an ambulance and onto the hospital. Noah said it was close to two hours from the time he found they got him safely down.

Talk about right place, right time.

Seriously.

Afterwards, Noah spent the day assisting the medical team with some other injuries like cramping and sprained ankles. He was one of the last guys off the trail that day and at the awards ceremony later that night he was presented with a challenge coin for his efforts.

Coffee Break Conversations

What to tell your friend who walked into the gym this morning shame faced over what he ate all weekend…

Maybe moderation is a better plan for you. Look, we get it. Some people just can’t help it. Put a pizza in front of them and it’s a goner. For the people who tend to be all or nothing, maybe you should consider moderating instead of abstaining. Moderators are able to have a slice of pizza at a party. Abstainers go full send and eat the entire pizza. It’s about finding a balance between the two, says Kate Hart of Working Against Gravity. 

Things To…

WATCH: Be Your Own Bodyguard

Tony Blauer teaches the CrossFit Workshop “Be Your Own Bodyguard” where he instructs his students that “action is always faster than reaction.” The workshop is a single-day immersive course designed to improve physical self-defense, situational awareness, verbal de-escalation skills and fear management.

BE READY. 

HEAR: How an Olympic Medalist Trains

Mark Zinno, host of the Kill the Quit podcast, sits down with two-time Olympic gold medalist Meghan Musnicki to discuss how Meghan got into rowing, her struggles in making the Olympic team, and her training process for staying in Olympic shape.

SOME HARD WORK.

EAT: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Because it is time, folks. Let us all add to the “All Things Pumpkin” craze with these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. Adding pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie spice jazzes up your basic chocolate chip cookie dough into an amazing fall dessert.

IT’S FALL Y’ALL.

Today’s edition of the Morning Chalk Up is powered by

Chalk Up Community

• ORPHAN AID LIBERIA — Last week, we told you about Orphan Aid, Liberia and their LOVE shirts. You readers came through, buying enough shirts to provide 2,472 meals for the kids they serve.
• ROWING FOR CANCER — Last month, we shared the story of Eric Pederson and his fight with cancer. Over the weekend, CrossFit Nittany hosted their row fundraiser and fourteen teams rowed a total of 567,451 meters. To date they’ve raised more than $11,000 with nearly $2000 of that on the day of the
  event.
• MEMORIAL WOD — Earlier this month 29-year-old Kristil Kincaid, who was eight months pregnant, was killed after being hit by a drunk driver. Her and her family were members of CrossFit Hoka Hey. A GoFundMe page has been
  started in her honor. 
• AVA KHALIPA DID THE ULTIMATE HAWAIIAN TRAIL RUN — At the last minute, Ava Khalipa told her parents she wanted to do the Ultimate Hawaiian Trail Run with them. So she did. 

CHALK UP IN 2 MINUTES (a highlight reel around social media of CrossFit pros and average joes)

Emily Bridgers joins the Pure Spectrum team • Red H Nutrition is opening a retail store in Omaha, NE • Nicole Biscuiti hit her goal to donate to the kids of the Keala Foundation • Hunter McIntyre deadlifts 500 pounds • Sue Muchmore gets a 200 pound back squat • Morning Chalk Up limited-edition shirts are still available for pre-order

… and this is what we really want to do when we finally beat our swolemate in a WOD.

CrossFit at Yale — A few blocks away from Yale’s campus sits CrossFit New Haven where Aaron Poach, the manager and head trainer at the gym, works to convince the community that CrossFit is for everyone, even Yale students. “I had always thought of CrossFit as this really intense thing that scary jacked guys do,” said student Victoria Bartlett. Bartlett never considered herself athletic before she started training at CrossFit New Haven. Daniel Stein, another Yale student, joined CrossFit because he
wanted to look like the Games athletes he saw on TV. But instead, he found a community. 

Venue Hunt: Granite Games 2019 — On top of moving the Granite Games to June and becoming the second announced CrossFit sanctioned event, they’re on the hunt for a new location to host the ninth Granite Games. So far founder John Swanson has visited Sioux Falls, SD, Minneapolis, MN, and Eagan, MN.

An Interesting Take on the Pain Cave — Gabrielle Kassel of Well + Good thinks it’s about time for us to stop glorifying the pain cave. We’re not so sure how many CrossFitters would agree. “As a culture we celebrate the rigor with which athletes compete, even when it’s to the detriment of their bodies. We front-page the agonies of athletes who, like gymnast Kerri Strug, suffer through broken bones to take home gold during the Olympics.
We’re mesmerized by the mental and physical agility of ultra-marathoners and Ironman competitors. ‘Normal pain’  like an everyday sugar-headache or period cramps waxes and wanes in intensity, same goes with the feeling of being out of breath or doing one-too-many burpees. You book a massage or set your alarm for an hour later the next day and move on. In the pain cave, the sensation radiates and is unrelenting. And to be honest, it needs to stop.”

“Do I Need to Lose Weight to Start CrossFit?” by Hilary Achauer, CrossFit Journal

Frances Mata Monsisvais, 35, drove around the parking lot of CrossFit Uru in Phoenix, Arizona, 10 times before she got the courage to walk in.

It was November 2015, and Monsisvais, who weighed 255 lb., wanted to get healthy. The working mom of four kids, aged four to 16, had tried other gyms but didn’t feel at home in any of them.

Her husband had encouraged her to check out the CrossFit facility down the street.

Once she forced herself to walk inside, she introduced herself to the trainer and got right to the point.

“Should I lose weight before I come in?” she asked.

The trainer smiled at her.

“No, no. Everything is good. Do it now,” he told her.

9/22: Shatter the Stigma III (Boyertown, PA)

9/22: New Kids on the 321 Block 2018 (Topsham, ME)

9/22: Femme Royale at Eagle Wing CrossFit (Orange, CA)

9/22: 2nd Annual CrossFit TUFF Charity Row-A-Thon (Nashua, NH)

9/22: Girls Gone RX Denver (Denver, CO)

9/22: Legends of the WOD (Grapevine, TX)

9/22: Beers and Burpees (Charlotte, NC)

9/22: Burpees 4 Autism at Lucky’s (Roswell, GA)

9/22: Lt. Nathan Flynn Memorial WOD (Columbia, MD)

9/22: Fall Jam (Columbus, OH)

9/22: 2018 GR Games (Grand Rapids, MI)

9/23 – 9/23: Field of Teams (Cedar Falls, IA)

9/22 – 9/23:The D-Town Throwdown (Decatur, Illinois)

9/22 – 9/23: The Cascade Classic (Seattle, WA)

9/22 – 9/23: Heartland Havoc 3 (Davenport, IA)

9/23: Games of the Ages Masters Team Competition (Hanson, MA)

9/23: Cadre Crucible Team Competition (Hudson, OH)

9/23: Detroit Red Wings WOD (Detroit, MI)

9/23: IronWorkz Gauntlet (Medina, OH)

9/24: CrossFit New England 3rd Annual Fundraising Golf Tournament (Hudson, MA)

9/28 – 9/29: Pensacola Beach Brawl (Pensacola Beach, FL)

9/28 – 9/29: The Primal Games (Savannah, GA)

9/29: Kilo Crush Fest (Hampton, VA)

9/29: Barcode Team Competition (Leander, TX)

9/29: Long Island Masters Team Competition (Hauppauge, NY)

9/29: Fallout Powered by Battleground Events (Long Beach, CA)

9/29: Battle for Boise (Meridian, ID)

9/29: 5th Annual WOD for a Cause (Murrietta, CA)

9/29: K-9 Pursuit (Bristol, CT)

9/29: Swolemates (Cincinnati, OH)

​9/29: CrossFit Be Someone Charity WODathon (Houston, TX)

9/29: Garage Girls (Pousbo, WA)

9/29: Adoption Fundraiser WOD (Millcreek, UT)

9/29: Warrior Slam at CrossFit Waldwick (Waldwick, NJ)

9/29: Fall Face Off 2018 (Albany, NY)

9/29: CrossFit Knightsdale Autism Awareness (Knightdale, NC)

9/29: Push Pull for Pancreatic Cancer @ CrossFit Petram (Middletown, DE)

9/29: Push Pull for Pancreatic Cancer @ CrossFit 88 (Park Ridge, IL)

10/3: Wodapalooza Qualifier (Online) 

10/5: The Hopper (Asheville, NC)

10/6: Beer City Beatdown (Asheville, NC)

10/6: Gallant Gauntlet 2 (Bedford, TX)

10/6: WOD for Water Troy (Troy, AL)

10/6: Cactus Games (Phoenix, AZ)

10/6: Pound-4-Pound Competition (Denver, CO)

10/6: Invictus Boston Barbells for Boobs (Boston, MA)

10/6: Girls Gone RX @ Old Line Crossfit (Millersville, MD)

10/6: The Battle To Benefit Badge (Utica NY)

10/6: Iron Eagle Challenge (Cookeville, TN)

10/6: The Grit Games (Jacksonville, FL)

10/6: Fit For Freedom (St. Peters, MO)

10/6: Fitness Freedom Project Jay WOD (San Marcos, CA)

10/6: OUTWOD (Philadelphia, PA)

10/6: Garden State Open 2018 (Berkeley Heights, NJ)

10/6: T-Town Throwdown (Toledo, OH)

10/6: 7th Annual Dog – WOD (Minneapolis, MN)

10/6 – 10/7: The Iron Clash (Fayetteville, NC)

10/6- 10/7: 307 Throwdown (Casper, WY)

10/12: 10/14: Faith RX’d (Denver, CO)

10/13: Barbells For Boobs 2018 (Sutton, MA)

10/13: WOD for a Cause (Bloomsburg, PA)

​10/13: C4 CrossFit Co-Ed Classic (Brunswick, NJ)

10/13: 2018 War in the Woods (Norton, MA)

10/13: The Festivus Games (Online)

10/13: Grand Games 2018 (Westfield, IN)

10/13: Push Pull for Pancreatic Cancer @ Red Island CrossFit (Smithfield, RI)

10/13: Barbells for Boobs (Steamboat Springs, CO)

10/13: Older, Wiser, Faster, Stronger (Plymouth, MI)

10/13: The Greenville Games (Greenville, SC)

10/20: BCS Classic 2018 (Bryan, TX)

10/20: Head 2 Head in Hamilton (Hamilton, NJ)

10/20 – 10/21: The Independence Games (Florence, SC)

​10/20 – 10/21: The Lincoln Invitational (Spokane, WA)